caught somewhere between real life, simple faith, & raw emotion
Reviews
Movie Review: This Is Spinal Tap
316 years
I watched This Is Spinal Tap weekend. OK, it wasn’t the first time I saw it. But it’s been about 20 years since I’ve seen it so it was like watching it for the first time all over again. Plus, I watched it with my wife and she has never seen it. Although her looks at me as we watched it (and I cracked up) communicated something other than enjoyment. Disdain is a good word. It was as if she was saying with her beautiful brown eyes, “Why are we even watching this? It’s not even funny.”
This movie is quite hilarious, I assure you. If you have never seen it you are definitely missing out. It is a poke at the post-70’s to mid-80’s Glam Rock and Metal bands. It chronicles the fictional legendary band Spinal Tap as it struggles to hold on to its fame. And it is quite accurate in its humorous portrayal of these ailing washed-up rock stars. It was also way ahead of it’s time.
I love this movie.
Favorite quotes:
“Ours go to 11.”
“It’s in the key of D minor. I find that to be the most depressing of all keys. People literally start weeping when they hear it.”
“Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It’s just not really widely reported.”
Favorite album:
Toss up between Shark Sandwich and Smell the Glove
Movie Review & Question: Ironman
516 years
I saw Ironman with Robert Downey, Jr. this weekend. It was a great movie. I really enjoyed it. The story was good and the effects were amazing. CGI is getting to a point where you can hardly tell something is animated these days. So I highly recommend it and plan on owning it when it comes out on DVD (another way how I gauge how good a movie is).
Robert Downey, Jr. was very good. I’ve always liked him. Gotta love movies like Weird Science, The Pick-up Artist, and Less Than Zero. Now if he could just stay of the dope, he’d have an even more amazing career.
There were, however, what seemed to be a few small comments that hinted at anti-Americanism. After all, you know how fashionable it is these days to point out how ‘evil’ America is, even though it is the most generous country in the world and nearly every other country is happy to take our money in the form of aid (including countries like France, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, etc).
It basically came as the main character, Tony Stark, saying he wanted to change his legacy (of being the major weapons manufacturer for America) because he saw how bad it was, thereby alluding to America as being bad as well. The thing is, he himself became the weapon so I don’t really get it. I don’t see how that’s different. This isn’t really any moral high-ground, if you ask me. Maybe I’m just too dumb to get this elite type of double-thinking. But the movie was still amazing.
The best line in the movie went something like this:
“I’ve been held captive in cave for 3 months. The first thing I want is an American cheeseburger.”
Here’s my question, can you be a superhero if you don’t actually have any super powers? That’s kind of how I define a superhero. Otherwise, aren’t you just a guy in a suit? Or is it that if you accomplish a high enough volume and intensity in heroic acts, that you can attain the status of super-hero even without super powers?
